NEAR EAST: Holy Skirmish

With a terrible, pregnant symbolism, World
War II jumped last week from the birthplace of democracy to the
birthplace of mankind. Five days after Athens fell, fighting broke out
in Iraq, traditional site of the Garden of Eden. In its beginning the
new conflict was a minor embarrassment to Britain; in its
potentialities it was a threat as serious as any the British Empire had
yet suffered.

A few days before Germany's Balkan campaign, a pro-German Arab
nationalist, Seyid Rashid Ali El-Gailani, overthrew five-year-old
Monarch Feisal II's pro-British Regent. Because of the threat implicit
in this coup, the British sent...